Most of the telecommunication operators had been developing data plans for users which took into account combinations of usage quotas for different services. At present, with the current growth of different data plans in broadband scenarios, more complex and evolved data plans turn up, where the number of combinations of services and corresponding prices have also considerably increased.
Current trends on data plans for users point to combination of services in such a manner that the whole combination is given a maximum usage quota and each particular service in the combination is also given a maximum usage quota. In these data plans, a flat tariff is generally applied whilst the maximum usage quotas are not surpassed and a higher tariff or other limitations are applied when any maximum usage quota is surpassed.
For example, Alice, as subscriber or user of a telecommunication network, is given a data plan with i) a maximum of a 30 Mb usage allowed per month for streaming services and P2P downloading, in which ii) streaming services should not surpass 10 Mb per month. In this example, where Alice attaches the telecommunication network and accesses only P2P downloading, the limit of a 30 Mb usage per month applies and the network only needs to monitor this value; however, where Alice attaches the telecommunication network and accesses both streaming services and P2P downloading, both limits, 10 Mb for streaming and 30 Mb for streaming and P2P downloading, apply simultaneously.
Two alternatives are currently under development to handle scenarios like the above Alice's subscription, as disclosed in 3GPP TR 23.858 V1.1.0, wherein entities of a Policy and Charging Control (PCC) architecture are involved.
The Policy and Charging Control (PCC) architecture and functionality is specified in 3GPP TS 23.203 V12.0.0 for Evolved 3GPP Packet Switched domain, including both 3GPP accesses (GERAN/UTRAN/E-UTRAN) and Non-3GPP accesses. Conventionally, and for the purpose of the present invention, the Policy and Charging Control (PCC) architecture includes a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF) in charge of traffic flow detection and enforcement of applicable policies to user traffic flows; a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) in charge of providing network control for the traffic flow detection by holding policies and providing PCC rules to the PCEF per user traffic flow basis for enforcement of such policies; a Subscription Profile Repository (SPR) in charge of providing subscription data for a user to the PCRF; and a Traffic Detection Function (TDF) in charge of performing application's traffic detection and reporting of the detected application to the PCRF. This PCC architecture may also include a Bearer Binding and Event Reporting Function (BBERF) which, for the purpose of the present invention, behaves in a similar manner and for a similar purpose as the PCEF, but for receiving and handling Quality of Service (QoS) rules instead of PCC rules. Apart from that, a User Data Repository (UDR) as disclosed in 3GPP TS 23.335 may replace the SPR for provision of subscription data.
In accordance with 3GPP TS 29.212 V12.0.0, the PCRF may handle multiple usage monitoring control instances. To this end, a monitoring key identifies a monitoring control instance that shall be used for usage monitoring control of service data flows. The usage monitoring control makes it use of data collected per monitoring key, which may apply for a single service data flow (SDF), a set of SDFs or for all the traffic in an IP Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session established by a user. In this context, a monitoring key for a PCC rule identifies one, more or all SDFs to be controlled by said PCC rule. Moreover, a monitoring key can thus apply to one or more PCC rules or to the whole IP-CAN session.
In operation, at IP-CAN session establishment, the PCRF may obtain information about total usage allowed for a service and one or more monitoring keys associated with the service to control the total service usage. Moreover, at IP-CAN session establishment and modification, the PCRF may provide applicable thresholds for usage monitoring control to the PCEF, along with the respective monitoring keys. That is, the total service usage is controlled by monitoring the thresholds for the monitoring keys.
Generally speaking, data plans may be thus constructed with great varieties of combination of services with different respective usage quotas that, depending on the particular one or more services accessed by the user, are applied alone or in combination. For example, a user may be given a quota for Internet Services of 1 GB, with monitoring keys A, B, C and D; a quota for Social Services of 0.75 GB, with monitoring keys A, B and C; and a quota for Gaming Services of 0.75 GB, with monitoring key E, wherein each monitoring key is given a particular threshold, namely, a monitoring quota.
In order to control the usage of Internet, Social and Gaming Services, the PCRF downloads monitoring quotas for monitoring keys: A, B, C, D and E to the PCEF; the PCEF reports per monitoring key basis; and the PCRF implements the required logic to combine the different reports per monitoring key basis, in order to calculate the usage per each service involving more than one monitoring key.
In the exemplary case given above, where the PCEF reports that the monitoring quota for monitoring key A is exhausted, the PCRF cannot determine yet whether the service quota for Internet and Social Services has been reached. In this situation, the PCRF should wait for a reporting of B, C and D before detecting if the service quota for Internet Services has been exceeded.
These combinations of several monitoring quotas for each particular service, as currently conceived, require significantly extra signalling between PCRF and PCEF, as well as an additional processing capacity at the PCRF to calculate the service quota for each combination and to update the PCEF with remaining monitoring quota for each monitoring key involved in each combination.
There is thus a need to find an alternative mechanism for control of usage of one or more services for a user, to be applied between a control server and any reporting device, which significantly reduces the signalling load between the control server and the reporting device and which optimizes the usage control of services associated with several monitoring keys.